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PERSONAL NARRATIVES 



OF EVENTS IN THE 



War of The Rebellion, 



No. 1. Second Series. 




FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 



BY 




SAMUEL T. BROWNE. 




PERSONAL NARRATIVES 



OF EVENTS IN THE 



War of the Rebellion 

BEING PAPERS READ BEFORE THE 
/ 

■ RHODE ISLAND SOLDIERS AND SAILORS 
HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 

No. 1 . . . Second Series. 




providence: 

THE N. BANGS WILLIAMS CO, 

1880. 



Copyright by 

N". BANGS AVILLIAMS, 

1880. 



PRINTED BY E. L. FREEMAN & CO. 



FIRST CRUISE 



OP 



THE MONTAUK 



BY SAMUEL T. BROWNE, 

PATMA8TEK UNITED STATES NAVT. 







PROVIDElSrCE: 
THE N. BANGS WILLIAMS CO 

1880. 




T^ 



N 






Copyright by 
N . BANGS WILLIAMS, 
1880. 



AUTHOR'S NOTE 



TfiE following paper was read before Kodman Post, No. 12, 
Department of Rhode Island, Grand Army of the Republic, 
at the recxuest of whose officers it was written, in February, 
1870. Especially was it suggested by Gen. James Shaw, Jr., 
whose efPorts, made first in Rhode Island, to obtain and 
preserve records of personal experience during the war of 
the Rebellion, resulted, at his suggestion, in the issuing of a 
general order by the Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army 
of the Republic of the United States, requesting the officers 
of every Post in all the States, to secure from the members 
the writing and reading, and then to preserve, the records 
of personal experience during the war; the chief result of 
which custom would be to obtain a large and valuable 
amo<Int of historical data, which must otherwise have re- 
mained unwritten. 

Willing and wishing to comply with the spirit of this idea, 
the following paper was written. Subsequently, at the request 
of the Soldiers and Sailors Historical Society of Rhode Island, 
it was read before that Society and deposited in its archives. 
Any interest which may attach to it, must arise from the 



6 author's note. 

fact that the vessel of which this paper speaks, was the first 
iron-clad that steamed so far away as the coast of Georgia, 
and braved the rough Atlantic in mid-winter; the first that 
had any contest with fortification or earth-work; and the first 
under which — and with serious injury to herself — a torpedo 
was exploded. She was thus the forerunner of all that great 
fleet of iron-clad men-of-war, now of such various design, 
of which nearly every navy of the world owns a part; and 
hence, the record of her earliest days and first service may 
be worth preservation. It is intended to be a simple and 
unadorned story, the character of the vessel, her service, 
and the time, justifying the detail of the relation, — and the 
fact of its being a narrative of personal experience, making 
unnecessary any apology for the seeming prominence of the 
writer. 

S. T. B. 
Naval Academy, Annapolis, Md., 
August 31, 1S7S. 



FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 



Read before the Society, Dec. 26, 1877. 



The echoes of the first guns that threatened 
destruction to the union of the American States, 
and sealed the harbor of Charleston into the hands 
of a prospective Confederate South, had scarcely 
died away wlien men's minds began to conceive 
and their hands to form new engines for offense and 
defense to be used upon the sea. Fragments of 
reports reached us, now and then, from the feverish 
and excited South, concerning the work of prepara- 
tion going on there, — that armed and mailed craft 
were building that would sweep the seas ; that 
vessels-of-war — late the nation's guard — were 
stripped of rigging and spars, braced and strength- 
ened, clad with an armor of iron rails, and thus 
invulnerable, were almost ready to enter a contest 
that should help win the South an independence. 



8 FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 

Too little heed Avas given to these reports of prepa- 
ration, and on one mild Monday morning in March, 
1862, the North was paralyzed by a message that flew 
from Fortress Monroe to millions of loyal firesides, 
telling of a strange vessel clad in shot-proof armor, 
that had steamed boldly in daylight from its covert 
at Norfolk, and in a few hours worked its own way 
of destruction and death among our vessels-of-war 
lying at anchor in Hampton Roads. She had sunk 
the Congress and Cumberland, noble vessels and 
manned by noble men, who stood by their guns 
while the water rose around them. 

" No blanching— no faltering — still fearless all seem: 
Each man firm to duty doth bide: 
A flash! one more broadside! a shout — a careen! — 
And the Cumberland sinks 'neath the tide. 

"Bold hearts! mighty spirits! tried gold of our land! 
A halo of glory your meed. 
All honored the noble-souled Cumberland band 
So true in Columbia's need." 

But the shot from the doomed frigates bounded 
like peas from the sides of the iron monster. The 



FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 9 

storm of shot and shell poured upon the strange 
craft from batteries both afloat and on shore, were 
unavailing to stop her terrible course, and only com- 
ing darkness saved the Minnesota and other vessels, 
and the immense supplies of government stores gath- 
ered at Hampton Roads. No salvation from this 
giant war- craft appeared. New York and Phila- 
delphia were threatened, and in a few hours the 
whole nation was throbbing in an agony of suspense. 
But that night there was an arrival in those waters 
of a strange vessel-machine, that at once lifted loyal 
hearts out of the quicksands of despair and placed 
them on the firmer ground of hope, and to the 
stricken North it seemed like an interposition of 
Divine Providence. On the following day, when 
the mailed marine Goliath came forth, lo ! — as to the 
astonished Philistines David appeared, so this insig- 
nificant strange apparatus that steamed out upon 
the bay, and which had been called in ironical droll- 
ery " a cheese-box on a raft."' Its sling was a new 
monster gun, and its stone an eleven-inch solid shot, 
and the giant vessel was smitten and driven away, 
and never again ventured to attack. 



10 FIRST CRUISE OP THE MONTAUK. 

This experiment of Ericsson's, called the " Monitor,"' 
though reaching Fortress Monroe by scarcely less 
than a miracle, from thenceforward became a cer- 
tainty, and gave name to a large and important class 
of the naval marine. A number of vessels on this 
plan, but having many improvements resulting from 
the experimental fight of the Monitor, were imme- 
diately contracted for by the government, and in the 
autumn the first two were finished, and to one of 
them, the Montauk, the Navy Department assigned 
me. To a modest gentleman whose eye-balls and 
face were stained with powder, blinded and wounded 
as he was by the last shot fired from the monster 
Merrimac at his little Monitor, to John L. Worden, 
whose gallant fight had restored a nation's confi- 
de Qce, and who was now to command the Montauk, 
I reported for duty. I found the Montauk lying at a 
wharf in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and not yet quite 
ready for service, and in every point she was much 
an improvement upon the Monitor. Her flat deck, 
not more than twenty inches above the water, and 
pointed at each end, reminded me of the shingle 
vessels 1 myself had launched in earlier years and in 



FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 11 

more peaceful times. Her deck was protected by a 
double layer of iron plates, each nine feet by three 
in surface area, and an inch thick. Her sides were 
armored with five thicknesses of these iron plates 
bolted through and through on thick oaken backing, 
and extending to a point about four feet below the 
water-line, and there the armor ended, and a sharp 
right angle carried that portion of the vessel known 
as the " overhang " to the hull of the ship which 
was constructed of five-eighth inch iron plates. 

The distinctive feature of the vessel was amid- 
ships, and consisted of a circular iron tower nine 
feet in height, and made of such plates as above 
mentioned, placed one over another, until the tower 
was eleven inches thick. These plates were firmly 
held together by massive bolts going through and 
through, on the outside the bolt-heads slightly 
rounded, and with the thread-end and heavy nut 
on the inside. The roof was made of iron plates 
perforated and placed upon railway rails, and the 
rails resting upon massive square beams of iron 
extending across the top of the tower. This tower, 
or " turret," as it became known, revolved upon the 



12 FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 

faces of rings of bronze-metal fitted into a circular 
channel in the deck, and around an immense iron 
spindle or shaft that supported the pilot-house 
standing above the centre of the turret, and a 
miniature of it. The pilot-house did not revolve. 
It was fitted with funnel-shaped eye-holes nearly 
five feet above the floor of the pilot-house, which 
converged from the larger diameter inside, to an 
aperture an inch in diameter on the outside. 

Within the turret were two guns, an eleven-inch 
and a fifteen-inch, — the latter ludicrously resembling 
a soda bottle, — its cartridges of walnut-sized powder 
varying from thirty-five to sixty pounds weight, and 
its missiles from a three-hundred-and-twenty-five 
pound unfilled shell, to a four hundred pound solid 
shot. Beneath the turret and guns was the turret- 
chamber, and here were small engines for working 
the turret, and also to operate the ventilating blow- 
ers, — for all of the supply of fresh air was drawn 
through the perforations in the roof of the turret, 
and forced through sheet-iron connecting tubes 
throughout the ship. 



FIRST CRUISE OP THE MONTAUK. 13 

All the light admitted below deck, came through 
thick circular glass dead-lights set about ten inches 
below the surface of the iron deck, and at the bottom 
of small cavities, perhaps seven inches in diameter, 
called '' wells." These dead-lights Avere open when in 
harbor, — and often even at sea in smooth weather, — 
but when engaged in a fight, the " well " was covered 
with a thick iron scuttle fitting snugly, secured be- 
low, and flush with the deck. 

Through the snows of November and December 
we plodded over to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and 
watched the fitting out of this strange vessel in 
which we were to venture to sea, and by which we 
hoped to strike an effective blow to preserve the 
integrity of the Union. 

None were more interested in her movements than 
a small gray- haired Russian gentleman with black 
twinkling eyes, whose simplicity and modesty won 
our esteem. He was a Naval Commissioner sent by 
the Russian Government to examine this new class 
of iron-clad men-of-war, and had the permission of 
our government to go to sea with us in the Moutauk ; 
and with his small, faded traveling-bag, he was always 



14 -FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 

earliest at the ship, that he might not be disappointed 
in going. This was Captain Lissovski, Commandant 
of the Cronstadt Navy Yard, and who, a few years 
later, came over as Admiral Lissovski, commanding 
the Russian fleet. 

In due time the Montauk was ready for trial, and 
we steamed up the Hudson to a point )iear Fort Lee, 
and opposite Washington Heights, where were let 
fly the big shot and shell into the rocky clifi's of the 
Palisades, and the earthy bank beneath them, to the 
terror of the occupants of the shanties half a mile 
away. The discharge of forty pounds of powder 
from the ponderous fifteen-inch guns, was as if there 
had been a short peal of thunder near by, and yet it 
was remarkable in how slight a degree was the shock 
or concussion unpleasant to those on board ship. 
Indeed, we afterward became so accustomed to it, as 
to be able to sleep during the working of the guns ; 
and, later, when off Forts Wagner and Sumter, and 
during the contest with those works in 1863, I often 
found myself waking from sleep into which I had 
fallen while sitting on top of the turret, immediately 
over the guns. 



FIRST CRUISE OP THE MONTAUK.- 15 

After other trial trips off Coney Island, both ship 
and guns promised to work well, and we put to sea. 
It was mid-forenoon of December 22, 1862, as we 
steamed down to Sandy Hook. There had been but 
one other venture like this. The great interested 
public knew but little of these vessels ; and from 
steamers, and from all manner of sailing-craft, and 
from ferry-boats, and from the shore, we were watched 
with an anxious curiosity that told how the national 
pulse was beating. 

At Sandy Hook the few remaining stanchions that 
held the lines around the vessel's sides were taken 
down, and the deck was absolutely clear. From the 
turret to the flag-staffs, fore and aft, a stout line was 
rigged, called the " life-line." The turret was " un- 
keyed," or let down upon its bed of bronze rings, and 
upon the big rubber band affixed to its base, to make 
it water-tight. To the extreme bow a heavy iron 
ring was fixed, and in this was a large shackle, from 
which two ten-inch hawsers, each one hundred and 
fifty yards in length, were passed to the steamer 
Connecticut, our tow and convoy, one hawser passing 
to her port, and the other to her starboard quarter. 



16 FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 

In an hour we were off, steaming seaward. The 
Connecticut seemed huge compared with our strange 
craft low-lying in the water, and ran up her speed to 
about seven knots, our own vessel steaming at the 
same rate, just keeping the hawsers taut. 

The preceding days had been so quiet that there 
was no sea, but the short, " choppy " waves, as we 
steamed into them, would overflow our deck, and 
then in a thin glassy cascade run off the sides, the 
sky was partially obscured by fleecy clouds, the 
wind was light, and in the late evening we went to 
our rooms and " turned in," with an assurance and 
confidence that seems surprising as I now look upon 
it. And so, quietly passed away the first day and 
night of the Montauk at sea. 

Of course totally unaccustomed to service like 
this, my only warlike nights having been passed 
upon the hills about Washington, yet the movements 
of the vessel were so equable and slight, that I did 
not awake until morning. The wind had arisen some- 
what during the night, and had occasioned a medium 
sea, so that as we steamed ahead, and the vessel's 
flat sides came against the waves, the water was 



FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 17 

dashed into a blinding spray that came over us like 
a shower. 

As there was no reason for going, so no one ven- 
tured on deck, but the top of the turret was our 
"forecastle," "midship," "quarter-deck," "lookout," 
and all. Tall iron stanchions curving outward, were 
fixed into sockets round the outside of the top of the 
turret, and around these was a broad band of canvas 
called the " weather-cloth," that aiForded protection 
from the winter winds and the piercing spray. 

The motion of the ship was very slight, and ex- 
ceedingly buoyant and easy, the rolling not exceed- 
ing three to four degrees, and not affecting our filled 
cups and glasses at the table. During the day, the 
vessel had been " too much by the head," or too 
low in the sea forward, a difficulty that affected her 
speed, and that increased as the vessel was light- 
ened amidships and aft by the consumption of the 
coal, so we put into Delaware Bay, coming to anchor 
off Lewes, where we remained two days, remedying 
the difficulty by moving shot and shell, and making 
careful examination of the ship ; and finding every- 



18 FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 

thing satisfactory, we again put to sea. It was a 
beautiful day, followed by a magnificent moonlight 
night. The big Connecticut, with its lofty masts — 
as we saw them — and its ponderous wheels, was 
immediately ahead ; the restless, dashing, glittering 
sea all around us ; and to us, standing upon this little 
iron tower and looking down upon the deck, which 
now and then seemed covered with a silver sheen 
as the sea shimmered over it, it was more like a 
vision from dreamland than an episode from daily 
prosaic life. 

The next morning found us inside of Cape Henry: 
the hawsers were cast loose from our bow, and we 
steamed finely in to anchorage at Hampton Roads. 
The Monitor — to which our gray-eyed commander 
called our attention as we came in, and told us some- 
thing of its famous fight, — lay just ahead of us. The 
Passaic, of our own class, was astern of us. The 
Galena, whose thinly clad sides were afterward pene- 
trated at Fort Darling, was on our starboard bow ; 
and some distance farther np the Roads, was the 
Ironsides, afterwards with us in the storm of fire and 



FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 19 

shell at Fort Sumter. The beautiful Colorado was 
there, not far away ; and English men-of-war were 
there, officers and men learning something of mod- 
ern warfare.'^ 

The days at Hampton Roads were beautiful ; no- 
ticeably so was the first of January, 1863. An unruf- 
fled bay ; a soft, balmy atmosphere ; a blue, unclouded, 
fathomless sky ; — nature never seemed lovelier in 
mid-winter; it seemed, indeed, as if its quiet was 
a type of that peaceful transition from bondage to 
liberty that made this day a new birth-day to four 
million souls. 

The note of preparation here was incessant ; every 
vessel had " steam up," and many of them could have 
slipped their cables and put to sea in a moment. 
Half-suppressed murmurs said we were bound for 

*The duties and engagements of Captain Lissovski as special 
Naval Commissioner from the Russian Government to examine 
modern appliances of science to the prosecution of war, pre- 
venting his accompanying the Montauk any farther, he took his 
departure here, having won our esteem by his gentlemanliness, 
and his earnestness and zeal in studying and becoming familiar 
with every part and department of the Montauk, and his earnest 
sympathy with us in the war. 



20 FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 

Charleston. The nation in impatient suspense wait- 
ed for a prostrating blow upon that city.* 

1 doubt if the authorities at Washington then had 
any objective point to which these- iron-clads were 
immediately bound. 

At mid-day of January second, although since 
morning it had looked threatening outside, we went 
to sea. The Monitor and Passaic had preceded us 
nearly two days. The Connecticut, that was to have 
been our convoy, was ordered to Aspinwall to bring 
away the treasure left by the Ariel, and the steamer 
James Adger was substituted. Before we reached 
Cape Henry we found a heavier sea than we had 
before seen, but the vessel behaved excellently. 
Before night set in we saw we were meeting a gale. 

*I am confident the force of iron-clads then available would 
have been insufficient for that purpose, and it would have been 
mad folly to have sent wooden vessels into that cul-de-sac whose 
sides bristled with four hundred guns, and the Waters of whose 
harbor were filled with every variety of torpedoes; and I have 
held the opinion, especially since the first attack upon the forts 
in April, 1863, that even if the iron-clads had penetrated the 
harbor, and escaped the network of torpedoes, that with four 
hundred guns the hammering them to pieces would have been 
only a question of hours. 



FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 21 

Every one of the seas swept over our deck like a 
deluge. The wind blew steadily and severely from 
the east, but did not seem to increase, and when 
night set in, it seemed we were having the latter 
and lesser half of the storm. Signals were ex- 
changed from our turret and the paddle-boxes of 
the James Adger. The ghastly light thrown by the 
signals out of the darkness upon the seething crests 
of the waves; the roaring of the sea as it dashed 
against the ship and turret and submerged the hull ; 
the cold spray thrust by the wind like needle-points 
against our faces ; black clouds overhead, and shriek- 
ing winds all around ; and we on this little tower 
twenty-one feet in diameter, with not even the ship's 
deck, nine feet below us, in sight more than half the 
time, (for nearly every sea rose within a few inches 
of our feet,) and nearing Hatteras ; — made it an ex- 
perience never to be desired again: yet once passed, 
to be valuable beyond any computation. 

The increased unsteadiness of the vessel in the 
heavy sea, and especially our anxiety for her conduct 
through the night, prevented much sleep. Daylight 
revealed a leaden sky, a heavy fierce wind, and a 



22 FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 

boisterous sea. At eight o'clock we were but a few 
miles off Hatteras, and even from our low lookout 
could now and then see the sea breaking upon the 
sandy cape. The James Adger was the length of 
our hawsers (about two hundred yards) ahead of us, 
and yet at times so heavy was the sea that she was 
hidden from us, even to her mast-heads. The vessel 
was now steadier than we had expected her to be, 
rising but little to the seas, but rather diving through 
them, or allowing them to sweep over her. 

At mid-forenoon the port hawser parted close to the 
James Adger's stern, and immediately drifted along- 
side of us, with imminent probability of its fouling 
our propeller unless we stopped, which, as we were 
towed by the steamer, we were of course unable to 
do. In the emergency there was no time to commu- 
nicate with the James Adger. At the same time the 
starboard hawser hauled us around into the trough 
of the sea, and placed our screw in double danger. 
For a few exciting moments it seemed an even ques- 
tion whether our propeller would snap, or the sea 
submerge us. The big seas came under our over- 
hang as if they would rip it from its solid union with 



FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 23 

the hull, and with a shock that made the vessel trem- 
ble from stem to stern. At times the solid green 
water came within six inches of the turret-top. The 
quickest remedy was to cut the remaining hawser — 
but how ! — green seas four — five — six feet deep were 
sweeping over the hull. Captain Worden called for a 
volunteer, and Acting Ensign Avery instantly offered 
to make the attempt, and with a stout line passed 
around him under his arms, and a battle-axe in hand, 
he dropped down from the turret on to the deck, and 
passing his arm around the life-line that was fore and 
aft, he struggled forward — three times swept from 
his feet in an instant by the green seas, he reached 
the extreme bow, clasped his arm around the flag- 
staff, and although a half-dozen times entirely buried 
in the sea, yet, after repeated blows, succeeded in 
cutting the hawser. Free now from the steamer, 
we succeeded in righting the ship into position, and 
after a couple hours' steaming alone, we finally 
reached smoother water, and again made fast our 
hawsers to the James Adger. 

Toward the close of the day the wind became 
lighter, the sea smoother, and the day ended much 



24 FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTADK. 

more pleasantly than it began. Before breakfast- 
time next morning we arrived off Beaufort, N. C, 
and by a mistake made by our pilot in passing inside 
the channel buoy, we ran aground, and were obliged 
to send in for assistance. We saw the Passaic at 
anchor inside, but no Monitor there. The steamboat 
Freeborn soon came out to our assistance, and dis- 
charging on board of her a sufficient amount of our 
shot and shell to lighten us, we steamed in to an 
anchorage inside. 

We then learned more of the storm off Hatteras, 
the latter part of which we had seen, and out of 
which the Monitor never came. During the height 
of the gale, and when ten miles about southeast of 
Hatteras, the heavy seas tore the overhang from 
her hull, and she went down. From a note by one 
of the officers, I take the following passage : 

"The gale at this time was raging fearfully; the 
water had risen to the grate-bars of the furnaces, and 
was extinguishing tlie fires; the ship v/as sinking; the 
sky was covered with masses of black clouds, aud at 
three-quarters of an hour past midnight, on the last 
day of 1862, the Monitor disappeared in the sea." 



FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 25 

Glory enough she had seen. Her beginning was in 
storms of shot and shell and the destructive power 
of man. Her ending was in the turbulent sea, with 
storm and tempest, as though only these powers of 
nature could fittingly attend the final hours of this 
vessel whose mission had seemed to be the salvation 
of the nation in its throe of agony. 

We remained a number of days at our anchorage 
near Fort Macon. At dinner on Sunday, the eleventh 
of January, Captain Worden informed me that we 
were going to Part Royal. Here — thanks for Burn- 
side's campaign — we received our mail via Newborn. 

On Monday, the twelfth, Captain Worden showed 
me an order he had received from Washington, — con- 
sequent upon the loss of the Monitor, — to send the 
Paymaster, the funds and the accounts, on board the 
convoy steamer, when he again went to sea, and he 
asked me what I thought of the order. 1 told him 
I thought it somewhat ill-considered and unwise, so 
far as the person of the Paymaster was concerned; 
that it might be well enough to send the funds and 
accounts, but to send on board another vessel any 
officer at such a time, might occasion an uneasiness 



26 FIRST CRUISE OP THE MONTAUK. 

and want of confidence in the ship that would be 
demoralizing to the crew, and possibly produce seri- 
ous results, and that just now an establishment of 
complete confidence was precisely the thing desired 
and to be gained if possible. I said I thought it also 
evinced on the part of the authorities ai Washington 
an apparent indifference to human life, that the reten- 
tion of the person of the Paymaster on board would 
conceal, and I requested him, as a favor to me, to 
forego the execution of the order, so far as the officer 
was concerned, and permit me to remain on board, 
and he did so. I quietly packed up the funds and 
accounts, and went with them on board the James 
Adger, and only the Captain, the First Lieutenant 
and myself, knew anything of the matter. 

On the afternoon of Saturday, January seventeenth, 
our own vessel convoyed by the James Adger, and the 
Passaic convoyed by the Rhode Island, steamed out to 
sea. At dark the Passaic and her convoy were eight 
miles astern of us, and we did not see her again. 
The wind was after us, and though there was but 
little sea, the prospect of a comfortable voyage was 
not flattering. During the night the wind increased, 



FIRST CRUISE OP THE MONTAUK. 27 

the sea became turbulent, and the vessel uneasy. 
In the early morning I awoke and went out upon the 
turret, and found the sky clouded, the wind in the 
northeast and blowing fresh, and a heavy sea, though 
it was with us. All day long the wind was variable, 
and gave no token of settling. Many times while 
sitting in my room, reading or writing, and hearing 
the sea gurgling overhead, I have looked up and 
seen the rushing eddying water filling and dashing 
over the little well above my dead-lights, and realiz- 
ing that there was two, three or four feet of water 
on the deck over my head, I would muse and think 
how strange is our human nature in its adaptability 
to all combinations of circumstance, and that I — that 
-any one — could sit there in peace and quiet, and with 
no feeling of alarm. 

Below deck it was always light enough to read or 
to attend to the daily routine of the ship. As none 
of the crew had occasion to go on deck, they re- 
mained below, reading, sleeping or smoking, or 
occupying their time in the many ways that a good 
and contented crew find to consume the day. 



28 FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 

The ventilation of the vessel proved to be very 
fair. The partial vacuum caused by the rapidly 
revolving fans, or blowers, in the turret-chamber, 
drew the air through the perforations in the roof of 
the turret, to the fans, whence it was blown through 
iron tubes to the different parts of the ship, and 
finally passed away by the furnaces and smoke-stack. 

On the evening of the seventeenth we were twenty- 
five miles off Charleston, and a few of the officers re- 
solved themselves, on the impulse of the moment, into 
a council of war, and debated the question — whether 
we should not go in, open the harbor to our fleet, 
and take the glory to ourselves. On the evening 
of this day the sky partially cleared, and the wind 
clung to the north-of-west, but next morning found 
it again in the northeast, and a heavy sea running, 
every ponderous sweep engulfing the hull of the 
ship. In the forenoon we saw the tall trees on Bay 
Point, and soon the light ship off Port Royal harbor 
came in sight. About three miles outside, we cast 
off ihe hawsers that held us to the James Adger, 
and steamed ahead into the harbor — the first Yankee 



FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 29 

iron-clad that had steamed so far at sea, or so far 
penetrated the domain of the South. 

As we steamed by the beautiful and stately flag- 
ship, the Wabash, with Admiral DuPont and his 
officers on the quarter-deck watching us, his crew 
manned the rigging and gave us three rousing 
cheers; and as we steamed on, it was taken up by 
the Vermont, the Ironsides, and other vessels-of-war 
as we passed them, and among which we soon came 
to anchor. The top of our smoke-stack came far 
below the rails of some of these vessels, and a little 
distance away our hull was scarcely discernible 
above the water ; yet our monster guns, the beauti- 
ful and effectual mechanism of our turret machinery, 
the perfect command of the vessel and her apparent 
invulnerability, inspired a confidence there long 
needed. Safe and quietly at anchor, our vessel be- 
came the subject of visits on the part of army and 
navy officers, and of correspondents, and all who 
could get to see her, and the examination established 
the confidence her arrival had inspired. 

The non-arrival of the Passaic caused some anx- 
iety. Not until the evening of the second day after 



30 FIRST CRUISE OP THE MONTAUK. 

.our arrival, did she signal her appearing. By a gale 
that arose as we came in, she had been driven back 
beyond Charleston, and for thirty hours she with- 
stood the fury of the storm, yet came in safe and 
sound. 

Admiral DuPont had work for us to do, and we 
only remained at Port Royal for a few days. It had 
been our expectation that we were going to block- 
ade or try the capture of the Atlanta. She had been 
the British steamer Fingal, and laden with arms and 
munitions of war, had run the blockade to Savannah, 
and had there been transformed into an iron-clad 
of the Merrimac type, the women of Georgia — it was 
said — having given half a million of dollars in gold 
to effect the transformation. Information obtained 
from Savannah seemed to justify the anxiety of the 
commanding officers at Port Royal for fear of an 
attack upon them by this vessel, which they had 
been as poorly prepared to meet as was the Union 
fleet at Hampton Roads when the Merrimac made 
the attack there. For months the Atlanta had been 
lying below Savannah, and now and then signals had 
been made from the Union garrison at Fort Pulaski 



FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 31 

that she was moving down the river.* But the 
golden opportunity — to them — was permitted to 
pass, and when, on June seventeenth, accompanied 
by two steamers filled with spectators, she came to 
capture two of our iron-clads that were blockading 
her, she commenced a fight that lasted only fifteen 
minutes, and surrendered after being struck by five 
shot from the Nahant — an iron-clad of the Montauk 
class — and was brought a prize into Port Royal, 
where it had so often been a boast she was going 
only to burn and destroy. 

Beyond Savannah, in the Big Ogeechee river, was 
lying the Nashville, a comparatively new and fine 
steamer, and sister ship of the James Adger. Sea- 
worthy and fast, she had twice run out with cotton 
for Europe, and returned with material of war. It 
was known that she had been fitted and furnished as 
a privateer, and partially loaded with cotton, and 
under the protection of the Atlanta, was ready to 



* There seems to be no reason to doubt that she might have 
gone to Port Royal, and destroyed all the vessels there, — a dis- 
aster that would have been second only to the first assault of 
the Merrimac. 



32 FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 

run by our little fleet of gunboats that had so dili- 
gently watched and confined her. The Florida was 
then working destruction with American commerce, 
and the Oreto had been at sea only a week. Those 
who knew the Nashville could imagine the alarm and 
destruction she might occasion when once officered 
and at sea. To the Big Ogeechee we were sent to 
watch and, if possible, capture or destroy the Nash- 
ville. Again convoyed by the James Adger, though 
not using her as a tow, we steamed seaward. The 
sea was as smooth as a lake, and the day clear, mild 
and balmy as a southern spring. At noon we made 
the blockading fleet off Warsaw Sound, through 
which the Atlanta must pass if she ventured to sea, 
and tried to communicate, but the wind was too light 
to raise our signal flags. In the early afternoon we 
passed the Canandaigua, blockading Ossabaw Sound, 
where we were bound, and into which the Big Ogee- 
chee flows. A heavy fog shut us in as we came to 
the narrow entrance to the Sound, and we were com- 
pelled to anchor ; but the fog lifted after awhile, and 
we steamed ahead again, and finally came to anchor 
inside the Sound, where we remained that night, Jan- 



FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 33 

uary twenty-fourth. The gunboats Seneca and Wis- 
sahicon, that had been blockading here some time, 
came to anchor near us. Our vessel was now en- 
tirely cleared for fighting trim. From stem to stern 
not a rope or a chain, or a bolt, in sight, nothing but 
the round turret and the big smoke-stack. Nothing 
remained to be done, in case of sudden action, but to 
close the battle-hatches — the work of a few seconds. 
An armed watch was stationed on deck, and the 
alarm-rattle laid in one of the turret-ports, ready for 
immediate use by the oflScer of the deck. 

The bright winter moon that flecked the water 
with flashes of silver, never shone down upon a 
stranger looking craft. The officers below, in con- 
versation, quietly speculated upon the probabilities 
of coming contests. The night passed quietly away. 
In the morning, one of the crew, Isaac Selby, was 
missing, and it was supposed that during his Avatch 
he must have stepped overboard, and the swift stream 
swept him under. At noon of the following day, 
January twenty-fifth, we moved up the river three 
miles, and again came to anchor. Here we received 
on board, from one of the other vessels, a pilot named 



34 FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 

Murphy, a small, tough-looking Georgian, whose es- 
cape from southern authorities was one of singular 
interest, whose knowledge of those waters proved 
of immense value to the Union commanders, and 
whose whole war course established a loyalty as 
true as steel. 

The Big Ogeechee is narrow, and very crooked, and 
low marshy banks border its sides. A mile or more 
across the marsh, and a little on the left, a spur 
of woodland conceals a location in the river known 
as Genesis Point, and here was the Genesis Point 
battery, better known, perhaps, as " Fort McAllister," 
named from Colonel McAllister, the sometime com- 
mandant, and upon whose plantation the fort was 
located. The river, which some distance of its 
course below the fort is hidden by the point of 
woodland, we could plainly see above the fort as it 
meandered through the marsh, which, with its tall, 
sedgy grass, extends on the right to, and beyond, 
the Little Ogeechee, even to the low bluff that 
forms the bank of the Vernon river, and on which 
the little hamlet of Beulah is located ; near by, a 
battery of three guns, and not far away, a small 



FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 35 

camp, possibly of Confederate pickets. Here and 
there, over this extended marshy basin, we can see 
columns of smoke arising, either from rice-mills or 
Confederate camps. Five hundred yards above our 
anchorage would have uncovered the fort from its 
concealment behind the point of woods, and bring us 
near a spot where is flying a white rag from the tip 
of a rod that sticks just above the grass, — a range - 
mark for the fort, and upon which their guns are 
bearing. It is more than a mile from the fort, and 
yet they had obtained such accuracy of practice, 
that when the gunboat Wissahicon went first to this 
point, she received the first shot from the fort 
directly in the centre of her hull. 

The beautiful mid-winter day passed in making 
preparations for the attack on the morrow. We 
knew that their guns covered every rod of our ap- 
proach, and were assured that there were electric 
and percussion torpedoes sunk in its channel ; but 
the risks of these are the chances of war. At nine 
o'clock in the evening, two boats, fitted for a night 
reconnoissance, left the ship. Each had a crew of 
ten men and three officers, and every officer and 



36 FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 

man was armed with revolver, rifle and cutlass. I 
accompanied the first lieutenant in the first boat. 
We shoved away from the ship, and with oars muf- 
fled with sheepskin, quietly pulled along in the broad 
shadow the grass cast upon the river. The sky was 
unclouded, and the moon shone clear and bright. 
Up and up we pulled, with no sound save the pat- 
tering of the drops as they fell from the oar-blades 
upon the river. We supposed the rebels had out 
scouts along the banks, and we watched for them, 
but none appeared. Up we continued, half the crew 
rowing, the other half with arms in their hands, until 
we reached a line of obstructions that diagonally 
crossed the river, and efi'ectually closed it, with the 
channel passage through it skillfully concealed. A 
third of a mile beyond was the fort, its side toward 
us dark in the shadow, and the sentry pacing the 
parapet. Here we remained a while, listening and 
watching, but nothing broke the stillness of the 
night, and we returned, removing the range-stakes 
along the bank as we came across them, and before 
midnight we reached the ship. 

On Tuesday morning, January twenty-seventh, we 



FIRST CRUISE OP THE MONTAUK. 37 

were'all up before light, and after partaking of a lunch 
of coffee and crackers we got up anchor, and soon 
after light started slowly up the river. Three of our 
boats were trailing astern from a spar lashed across 
the ship. When well underway, the rattle sounded 
to " quarters," and oflScers and men repaired to their 
stations for action. Captain Worden, the pilot Mur- 
phy and myself remained on the turret-top. I think 
it would have been quite impossible for any one to 
have comprehended and appreciated the occasion. 
I am sure we did not. A vessel of war of such type 
as the world had never before seen, vulnerable only 
in her hull below the water, steaming up a narrow, 
tortuous, strange river, with the assurance that in 
its bed were torpedoes, the slightest touch to which 
would explode them, and containing powder sufficient 
to destroy a dozen vessels like our own, — was a reali- 
zation the full import of which we could not then 
comprehend. 

When we reached the bend iu the river where the 
fort opened to full view, it was clear day and the 
sun was just shining above the low tree-tops. A 
little less than a mile ahead was the fort, situated at 

4 



38 FIRST CRUISE OP THE MONTAUK. 

a sharp angle in the river, the bending of the river 
above it making of the land on our right a peninsula. 
Slowly we steamed against the current, and eagerly 
scanned through our glasses the massive proportions 
of the fortiBcation, its banks covered with rich green 
sod, and the muzzles of the guns just visible, point- 
ing at us from the heavily protected embrasures. 
Between the guns immense mounds of earth or trav- 
erses extended back into the rear, eftectually cover- 
ing the guns from an enfilading fire, to which by the 
approach they were partially exposed. Above the 
parapet floated the new ensign of this new dominion 
whose existence we had come to dispute. 

It being unnecessary and imprudent to remain 
longer on the outside, we descended into the turret, 
and from thence climbed up into the pilot-house, and 
from the funnel-shapel eye-holes within, I watched 
the contest. Before eight o'clock we came to an- 
chor about eleven hundred yards from the fort. In 
a few moments we let fly from the eleven-inch gun, 
a shell that fell a little short and disappeared in the 
river. Another was tried, that entered the battery 
and exploded with a loud report, blowing the soil in 



FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 39 

every direction, and for a moment hiding a portion 
of the fort in the dust of the explosion. Then a shell 
was sent from the fifteen-inch gun, — the breech of 
which is so thick it prevents looking over it and out 
of the port, and hence has to be sighted by the eleven- 
inch, — and this imbedded itself in the parapet, and 
burst with a heavy deadened report, literally filling 
the air above the fort with earth and debris. The 
reports of our guns were like peals of thunder in- 
stantly let loose from confinement. Columns of fire 
fifteen inches in diameter, and a rod in length, flashed 
from the turret ; immense bodies of dense smoke shot 
over the river; and but for its incessant rolling and 
unfolding looked like masses of granite. For a mo- 
ment after the discharge of the guns, the turret and 
turret-chamber were filled with smoke, but the ven- 
tilating apparatus soon carried it away. The shock 
of the discharge, though forty pounds of powder were 
used, was not severe or at all injurious within the 
ship. Mr. Giraud, the officer having command within 
the turret, and considered one of the best shots the 
war produced, had found the exact range, and kept 
it. Instantly the rebels replied with a ten- inch shot 



40 FIRST CRUISE OF THE MOjSITAUK. 

from their pet gun. A flash ! — and then a big puff 
of sraoke, out of which a tiny bhick spot appeared, 
that rapidly grew in size (or seemed to), describing 
a low arc, and then for an instant a big black ball 
was before my eyes, then quick as thought it disap- 
peared, and with a heavy — thud ! it struck square in 
the centi'e of the turret, making an indentation about 
as large as a soup-plate. It was evident from their 
firing the instant our guns were discharged, that 
they hoped to send a shot into one of our ports, but 
the immediate turning away of the turret to reload, 
prevented the working of their plan. We could 
watch our own shell as they emerged from the smoke 
and seemed rapidly to lessen in size and then bury 
themselves in the earth. 

Again we gave them an eleven-inch shell that fell 
within the fort, and again a fifteen-inch that imbed- 
ded itself in the solid work an instant, and then 
exploded, powder, smoke, dust and earth filling the 
air, and leaving a rent in the work big enough to 
drive an ox-cart through. Occasionally a shell would 
scour the top of the fort, and then ricochet into the 
air, and fall a mile beyond in the dense wood, crush- 



FIRST CRUISE OP THE MONTAUK. 41 

ing the trees in its descent. Sometimes a shell would 
pass through the face of the fort and burst inside. 
We could only see the rebels as they loaded their 
guns, and then at the discharge of our own they 
would drop as though shot, and rush to their bomb- 
proofs, — though we learned there was nothing that 
day in Fort McAllister that could truly be called 
bomb proof. 

We fired at intervals of six or seven minutes, 
alternating with our guns, for an hour, when the 
length of the intervals was increased to ten or twelve 
minutes. They answered from the fort briskly and 
with wonderful precision, remembering how small a 
mark our ship at the distance afforded. Not a shot 
from the fort struck farther from us than thirty or 
forty feet, and the shot and exploding shell threw 
up from the river columns of water that broke and 
descended upon the turret like showers of rain. To 
our astonishment, they would fire some of their guns 
out from the smoke of our exploded shell, when it 
seemed that the shell had struck precisely where the 
gun stood. We afterwards learned that these gun 
carriages were on rails, and the recoil sent the guns 



42 FIRST CRUISE OP THE MONTAUK. 

to bomb-proofs in the rear, where they were loaded 
and run out again, or from which, as needed, they 
could be run into position and then loaded. 

The rebels fired rapidly for an hour, when their 
firing began to slacken and become irregular, and 
apparently from only two guns, — and as we knew 
they could and had been using eight, we concluded 
six must be in some way disabled, and thought we 
could see through some of the immense rents and 
damaged embrasures, that a number of them were 
dismounted. For three hours we had thrown our 
big shells into their work. We had carried away 
their flag, blown into a shapeless mass the parapet 
and glacis that we had seen in the morning strong 
and smooth sodded. They still held out, and wo 
began to wonder how long they could stand the 
explosion of fifteen-inch shell, for the number that 
remained in our magazine having suitable fuses was 
small. These were carefully used, and as we watched 
them, we knew that the havoc they made must be 
terrible. They continued to fire at us with a spite- 
fulness and snap truly admirable. They had carried 
away one of our flags ; riddled another ; hammered 



FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 43 

a score of indentations in our turret and pilot-house ; 
broken off some of the bolts and driven them inside — 
and two of them, with the nuts attached to them, had 
passed within three inches of my head, that would 
have been crushed had they hit it; they had scoured 
our deck with scars two feet long, indenting and 
bending the iron plates ; they had perforated our 
smoke-stack in many places, and cut its top into a 
ragged fringe ; they had smashed our boats into 
splinters; still the efficiency of the vessel was not 
touched. In half an hour our suitable shell were 
gone, and solid shot and canister would not avail, 
and we withdrew. For some time they had not fired, 
but as we got underway and were moving down 
stream, they let fly at us four shot in rapid succes- 
sion. A few of us had got out on to the deck from 
one of the smoke-stained ports in the turret. One 
of the shot fell at our right hand in the river, two 
fell short, and the fourth came screaming over our 
heads, and striking in the marsh beyond, threw up 
grass and mud and water, and ricocheting, flew off 
high into the air, as though it was going to Port 
Royal. 



44 FIRST CRUISE OP THE MONTAUK. 

Officers and men, black and stained with powder- 
smoke, came from the turret and from below decks, 
out into the clear noonday air, to see the result 
of the fight, and to take a parting look at the fort, 
which not till now had they been able to see. We 
steamed down to our anchorage and made fast, A 
small steamer was immediately sent to Port Royal 
for suitable shell and fuses, and boats. In the after- 
noon the ship was cleared and cleaned of powder- 
smoke, and splinters, and fragments of shell (broken 
against our turret), and in early evening we went to 
rest, after a terrible strain upon the nerves of the 
watchers, and the muscles of the workers. Though 
the work might have been blown into worthlessness 
by us, or abandoned by the rebels, still with no co- 
operating land force, it could not be occupied by us, 
while when we withdrew it could be strengthened 
again and renewed by the rebels. 

Contrabands occasionally canre to us, some of them 
directh'- from the fort, and there was no flaw or con- 
tradiction in their story. They told us the fort was 
commenced before the war began, and they had 



FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 45 

worked on it incessantly until it was exceedingly- 
strong. 

We learned from a number of refugees that our 
day's work had almost demolished" the fort; that we 
had dismounted three guns ; had killed two officers 
and a number of men ; that two or three times the 
fort was abandoned ; and that one of our fifteen-inch 
unexploded shell was exhibited in Savannah, excit- 
ing much wonder, and exerting an excellent moral 
influence. 

The rebels stuck to their work splendidly, and we 
voted McAllister and his men a plucky company. 
It was impossible without exposing men to certain 
death, to remove the obstructions, and hence impos- 
sible for us to get up the river. The Nashville cer- 
tainly could not get out. The chief end in attacking 
Fort McAllister was to put our men under fire, and 
thoroughly test the power of resistance and offense 
of our vessel. , 

In a week — on February first — we repeated this 
fight, going this time within six hundred yards of the 
fort, and close to the obstructions. We were struck 
fifty- six times. As often as we tore up the work in 



46 FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 

this way, the surrounding country was levied on for 
workmen, and with the labor of the garrison, forty- 
eight hours made the work nearly as good as new. 

Our object in coming here, the capture or de- 
struction of the Nashville, had been so far without 
avail. Friday, February twenty-seventh, unexpect- 
edly placed her in our power, and sealed her des- 
tiny. A little more than two weeks before, she 
came from her retreat near the bridge of the Savan- 
nah and Florida Railroad, and took a position under 
the guns of Fort McAllister, intending to take advan- 
tage of the spring tides prevailing then, and seize 
the first opportunity to slip to sea. But we had 
been waiting and watching for this very movement. 
One night she came down to Hardee's Cut, a short 
distance below the fort, hoping in that way to get 
into the Little Ogeechee, elude our vessels, and pass 
to sea ; but one of the vigilant gunboats was there 
ready to receive h6r if she came through. They did 
not try it, and back she went up the river, and, as 
we learned from refugees, for some time was con- 
cealed in a bight in the river a number of miles above 
the fort, while the Savannah papers said she had 



FIRST CRUISE OP THE MONTAUK. 47 

given the slip to our vessels, and gone to sea. As 
we expected, however, she came down again to the 
fort. For a number of days she had been trying, as 
it has since proved, to get up the river again, but a 
mile above the fort was a shoal, over which she could 
pass only at highest tide. She steamed up to the 
shoal and back again to the fort, a number of times. 
On Sunday afternoon, February twenty- second, she 
came in sight from behind the point of woods, went 
to the shoal, and again returned to the fort. She 
reminded me very much of a caged rat seeking a 
hole for escape, and finding none. On Friday, Feb- 
ruary twenty-seventh, at three o'clock in the after- 
noon, the gunboat VVissahicon signaled a movement 
on the part of the Nashville, lying near the fort. 
From the gunboat's mast-heads they could see what 
from our lower position was invisible. We bent our 
sight eagerly toward the point of woods, and soon 
discovered thin columns of black smoke ascending 
from behind the trees, as from a steamer's smoke- 
stack, and indicating a movement on the part of the 
privateer. For a while the smoke increased, and 
grew thicker, but finally seemed to settle down into 
a thin broken line, and so remained. The captain 



48 FIRST CRUISE OP THE MONTAUK. 

and ofiScers went down below to dinner. I remained 
on the turret, impressed that more was coming out of 
the matter. In twenty minutes the column of smoke 
began growing larger, and blacker, and thicker, and 
to move rapidly by the trees. Intently I watched the 
point, and in a moment, from behind the trees came 
the bow, foremast, then the smoke-$tack, and main- 
mast, and there indeed, with the thick black smoke 
arising from her funnel and filling the atmosphere, 
and the ship steaming rapidly up the river, was the 
famous blockade runner, the rebel privateer Nash- 
ville. She steamed rapidly some distance up the 
river, then suddenly and instantly stopped, when her 
bow and the wliole of the ship forward was abruptly 
lifted four or five feet, and there she remained. 

I saw immediately that she had waited to go up 
the river until it was too late, and in endeavoring in 
the clear light of mid-afternoon, — and we had never 
seen her so plainly before, her coming and going hav- 
ing been in the duskiness of morning or evening, — 
had attempted to cut her way through the shoal, and 
had brought up aground, hard and fast. I immedi- 
ately sent word below, and the captain and officers 



FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 49 

came on deck. We went straightway to quarters, 
and for a while Captain Worden intended to go di- 
rectly up the river. The gunboat Seneca was sent 
up to reconnoitre. She went up the Little Ogeechee 
to within a mile and a half of the Nashville, and by 
way of trial threw four or five shell at her, and in 
half an hour came back again. 

In the meantime the smoke from the Nashville 
increased, crowding itself up into the air from out 
her funnel, a dense, expanding, sooty column, and 
rolling and curling into big black clouds that covered 
the sky and hurried the coming night, and telling 
us — how plainly — that they were making a life- 
struggle to get away. But it was of no use ; her 
engines though a hundred-fold more powerful could 
not take her off whole. She did not move an inch. 
The tide, at the ebb when she ran aground, was now 
falling, and her condition was every moment becom- 
ing worse. 

Captain Worden would have moved up to attack 
her if he had thought it judicious, but he saw that 
she could not get off until morning, with not the 
slightest probability of her doing so then. Night 



50 FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 

■ 

was fast coming on, and he chose to wait. At dusk 
a little smoke, mingled with steam, was rising in thin 
clouds from her funnel. With our glasses we plainly 
saw men on her deck, at the mast-heads, and in her 
rigging, and we knew that she would be lightened 
during the night, if possible, and every expedient 
resorted to to get her afloat. 

The night was mild and hazy, the moon obscured 
by passing clouds, yet no light was seen in the di- 
rection of the grounded steamer, nor indeed in any 
other direction, not even the usual rebel signal lights 
seen almost every night on the river above, or at the 
batteries on Coffee Bluff, or at Beulah ; but we were 
confident they were working at her, and we prepared 
to make a demonstration in the morning, anxiously 
hoping that the bird we saw so nicely caught in the 
afternoon, might be still fast at the morrow's dawn. 

At four o'clock the next morning, February 
twenty-eighth, all hands were up, and at five 
o'clock we had had breakfast and were all ready for 
the work which we had been earnestly hoping the 
day might bring us to do. It was a mild, pleasant 
morning, and the surface of the river was scarcely 



FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 51 

broken by a ripple. At five o'clock and ten minutes 
we got up anchor, and in ten minutes more we were 
steaming up the river at the rate of six knots. The 
morning was just breaking, and it was not light 
enough to discover whether the Nashville was still 
on the shoal where last evening's darkness found 
her. We entered a bend in the river, and slackened 
our speed somewhat, and soon it became lighter, but 
we were behind the point of woods that we were 
watching with eager eyes, while our passage up the 
river was opening to our view the point where we 
hoped to find the rebel steamer still entrapped. 

A little farther — and there she is — hard and fast! 
We can see a number of men on her forecastle, and 
considerable bustle and confusion. We steam on by 
Hardee's' Cut, by a range-mark that is fifteen hun- 
dred yards from the fort, on to a point eight hundred 
and fifty yards from the fort, and at seven o'clock we 
come to anchor, with fifteen fathoms of chain from 
our windlass. The ship is heading up the river. 
As we look at the Nashville, Fort McAllister is on 
our left, eight hundred and fifty yards away, at the 
angle in the bend of the river. We lie close in to 



52 FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 

the marshy shore. The Nashville is much more than 
a mile above the fort, but less than eleven hundred 
yards from us, across the swampy peninsula, and is 
lying with her full fair broadside toward us. The 
gunboats Wissahicon, Seneca and Dann are lying in 
the Big Ogeechee, a mile and a half below us. 

From the level of our deck we can see nothing 
of the Nashville but the paddle-box tops, the smoke- 
stack, and topmasts ; but from the inside of the 
pilot-house we can see the whole steamer, even 
below her guards, and nearly to the water. She is 
newly painted, and is the same light drab color as 
our own vessels of war. Her masts and spars look 
well, her rigging is taut, and her figure-head newly 
gilded. 

At seven minutes past seven o'clock we fire our 
first gun (the eleven-inch) at the Nashville, and im- 
mediately they let fly at us from the fort three guns. 
But something is the matter there — for they all pass 
without touching us, as the shot from the fort have 
not hitherto done. The smoke from our own gun 
rises slowly, and we cannot see the effect of its 
shell. In thirty seconds we see another flash and 



FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 53 

puff from the fort, and another shell flies by us. In 
five minutes we fire our eleven-inch again, and again 
the smoke conceals the effect of our shot. In five 
minutes a shot from the fort strikes our pilot-house, 
a ten-inch solid shot, and breaks into halves, one 
half remaining on top of the turret, and the other 
half falling down upon the deck. We then fire our 
fifteen-inch, and still the rolling "cloud of dense blue 
powder-smoke shuts from our view the result of the 
shot. We then fire the eleven-inch, and can plainly 
see it pass just over the Nashville's after rail. In 
six minutes we fire the fifth time, now a fifteen-inch 
shell, and follow it distinctly with our eyes, and it 
penetrates the rebel's deck near the foremast. From 
the fort they are firing at intervals of a minute, occa- 
sionally a shot at the gunboats below, though beyond 
range yet as if they must do something except the 
incessant harmless fire at us, and still toward us they 
send most of their shot. But we pay no attention 
to the fort, not returning any of its fire. Again we 
send a shell which the smoke hides from us, and 
again another is hidden from us. The fifth shot, 
that entered near the foremast, has done its work, 



54 FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 

and we can see a column of whitish-gray smoke 
issuing from her fore-hatch, and in five minutes 
more tongues of flame leap out with the smoke, high 
into the air. 

We cannot see her guns, and we suppose they 
must have been taken off during the night. As we 
came to anchorj we saw a number of persons get 
over her starboard side, the one opposite us, after 
which we saw no living soul on board. 

We fire again, and the shell flies crashing into her 
hull in front of her paddle-box, and when the smoke 
of our gun has slowly drifted away, we see the fire 
breaking through the deck amidships. Another shell 
smashes through the paddle-box, and explodes at the 
base of the smoke-stack, which comes tumbling down 
upon the hurricane-deck. Though Mr. Giraud can- 
not see the Nashville, yet he is making splendid 
shots from our guidance. 

We fire our last shot at three minutes after eight 
o'clock, having fired fourteen times ; and as the smoke 
clears away from this last shot, we can see the flames 
bursting out around her paddle-boxes, issuing in great 
sheets from the fore-hatch, creeping up the foremast 



FIRST CRUISE OP THE MONTAUK. 55 

rigging, and gaining aft." The fog which has been 
slowly gathering around us, now entirely shuts us in, 
and we cannot see thirty yards. For more than half 
an hour we are thus enclosed, when the fog rises 
enough to show us the Nashville with the fire rapidly 
gaining, and smoke-stack fallen partly through the 
port paddle-box. Fearing that under cover of the 
fog our ship might be boarded by overpowering 
numbers, the anchor was gotten up at forty minutes 
after eight o'clock, and we turned head down stream. 
From the fort they had not fired in twenty-five or 
thirty minutes, but as we started away, they let the 
shot come thick and fast. We learned afterward that 
the garrison had been changed since our last visit, 
and only the fact of new men at the guns could 
explain why few shots from all their firing hit us — 
but really it made little difference whether they hit 
us or not. 

We steamed slowly down, and in a few moments 
the fog had risen, revealing the Nashville enveloped 
in flames. The fire came out from the opened seams 
in her sides, from around her smoke-stack base and 
her masts, from between the ribs and braces of her 



56 FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 

iron wheels, and fore and aft; and from stem to stern 
she was shrouded in iire. At thirty-five minutes past 
nine o'clock she blew up, with a smothered rumbling 
report like distant thunder. The explosion was 
amidships, and the column of flame and smoke, like 
the discharge of a huge gun, shot up into the air, 
higher than her trucks, carrying with it the charred 
and broken timber and burning bales of cotton. It 
was a sight that once seen can never be effaced from 
the memory. In a few moments another explosion 
of less extent took place, shattering and opening the 
stern of the steamer. Her masts, that had stood 
through it all like black spectres, now toppled and 
came down ; the flames gradually lessened ; the 
long black column of smoke wound its way up to a 
cloud which had grown until it overshadowed the 
heavens ; and nothing remained but the stem and 
the iron wheels. 

A mass of smouldering embers was all that re- 
mained of the noted blockade-runner, the terror of 
our northern merchants, the destroyer of the Harvey 
Birch, the rebel pirate Nashville. 

We continued on slowly down the river. I came 



FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 57 

out of the pilot-house and was standing on the tur- 
ret; men and officers had just been relieved from 
their stations and were gathering on deck. The 
port quarter of the vessel was carried, probably by 
the action of the current, against the bank of the 
river, and quite near a small piece of cloth flying 
from a stick in the grass, which the captain had 
noticed as we went up the river and called the pilot 
Murphy's attention to it, who said, — •' I think I'll 
give it a wide berth, sir ! I am afraid it's a torpedo." 
As we now touched the bank, I was conscious of a 
jarring motion, as though she had struck the bank 
quite heavily, but nothing more. So it was noticed 
by most upon the deck. There was not much more 
commotion in the water than might be made by the 
propeller when close in shore. It was, however, 
supposed in the fire-room below to be a torpedo, and 
before we moved half a dozen rods away from the 
bank, the chief engineer came up from the fire-room 
and said to the captain, — " That was a torpedo, sir ! 
it has blown a hole in her hull under the boilers, and 
the water is within three inches of her fires." We 
were just passing the gunboats, whose crews were in 



SS- FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 

their ships' rigging cheering us. Captain Worden 
shouted to their commanding officers to send him 
men and buckets. The boats were dropped from 
their davits to the river ; the men jumped into them ; 
buckets and pumps were tumbled in ; and in fifty 
seconds boats were alongside, and men, buckets and 
pumps on board. The tide was about an hour ebb. 
Captain Worden turned to the pilot, and said to him, 
" Murphy, can't you run me ashore here in some 
good place?" The pilot answered, "That I can, 
sir!" All the remaining steam was crowded on, 
and after moving about half a dozen lengths, we ran 
ashore along the river bank, where the vessel's keel 
bore evenly. The pressure of the ship upon the 
bottom filled the cavity and stopped the leak ; the 
ebbing tide left us high and dry ; pine plugs with 
gutta percha were driven into the chief opening 
and the cracks that radiated from it ; the ship was 
bailed out ; and when the rising tide came in again 
and lifted us, the rent seemed closed and the ship 
as good as ever. 

The rebels had intended undoubtedly to explode 
the torpedo under us as we went up the river, that 



^ 



RD-94 



FIRST CRUISE OF THE MONTAUK. 59 

side being the right and proper one to take as we 
moved up, and the torpedo must have been located 
as recently as the previous night. But the percep- 
tion and prudence of our pilot saved us. Had the 
rebel plan succeeded, the torpedo would have sunk 
us in the river, the gunboats could not have gone 
near enough to harm the Nashville, and she would 
have been saved to the enemy, and possibly suc- 
ceeded in getting to sea. But the Montauk was 
preserved ; was able with her patched hull to join 
in a fight with Fort McAllister (DU the following 
day, with three other monitors that arrived that 
afternoon ; was at Charleston from the beginning to 
the end of the assault on the forts ; and came out 
of the war the veteran monitor, bearing more than 
four hundred honorable scars. 



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